Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So welcome back to day two of our countdown of
Speaker 1: the twenty five greatest science ideas in the past twenty
Speaker 1: five years. And you know what's funny is when I
Speaker 1: was driving around last night, I saw a car with
Speaker 1: a bumper sticker and this is true. It said science
Speaker 1: is like magic, but it's real. Okay, that's a real
Speaker 1: bumper sticker.
Speaker 2: I like that, you know. And considering we've already covered
Speaker 2: how to get catch up to flow smoothly out of
Speaker 2: a bottle, and a scientist to capture the actual smell
Speaker 2: of space in a perfume, also a cure for hamster
Speaker 2: jet lag, I'd say we're off to a pretty magical star.
Speaker 2: It's also weird, but it's a pretty magical start. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But as soon as I saw that sticker, I had
Speaker 1: to roll down my window to yell, Hey, science fans,
Speaker 1: subscribe to Part Time Genius on your favorite podcast.
Speaker 2: You are not telling the that is not a mango move.
Speaker 2: But I feel like they might like the show well,
Speaker 2: and actually I feel like you forgot to tell them
Speaker 2: to leave a rating and review. That's that's your other
Speaker 2: go to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm sure they'll figure it out in the meantime.
Speaker 1: When do you say we get started with day two
Speaker 1: of our incredible countdown?
Speaker 2: Can't wait, let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome
Speaker 2: to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 2: I'm here with my good friend mangesh Hot ticket there
Speaker 2: and over there in the booth knows deep in a
Speaker 2: book of magic tricks. It's our pal and producer Dylan Fake.
Speaker 1: I think I might have inspired him to take up
Speaker 1: this new hobby with that little story.
Speaker 2: As long as he doesn't run off to Vegas without us,
Speaker 2: I think that's okay. So Mango, I'm really excited to
Speaker 2: continue this countdown because today we're talking about bike helmets,
Speaker 2: We're talking about virtual dolphins, lobsters, and strangely, a healthy
Speaker 2: diet that doesn't involve lobsters unfortunately. So let's get started.
Speaker 1: With Okay, Well, so how about we kick this off
Speaker 1: with a little pop quiz. What would you describe as
Speaker 1: sort of a modern healthy diet?
Speaker 2: You know, obviously, I think it involves a lot of
Speaker 2: fruits and veggies, good fats. You hear about olive oil, fish, nuts,
Speaker 2: maybe some eggs, beans, poultry for protein, red meat, and
Speaker 2: alcohol in moderation of course, and not too much candy,
Speaker 2: which is a bummer, like those atomic fireballs we've been
Speaker 2: sending out, So just those in moderation as well. Those
Speaker 2: are the things that come to mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you just described the classic Mediterranean diet, right,
Speaker 1: and it's how people in the blue zones eat right
Speaker 1: like people who live along I'm in place like Sardinia, Italy,
Speaker 1: Italian Islands, Ikorea and Greece, and people tend to eat
Speaker 1: really healthy lives there. But what if I told you
Speaker 1: there might be an even healthier diet and instead of
Speaker 1: tomatoes and olive oil, we should be eating cassava and
Speaker 1: howler monkeys.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't see that went coming. I think you'd
Speaker 2: have to give me some pretty convincing evidence. I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm up for this. I don't know. You might
Speaker 2: call it like the Temple of Doom diet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it's a good derivative from the
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones franchise. But let me tell you a little
Speaker 1: bit about it. So, over the past decade, there have
Speaker 1: been a number of studies involving the chi Mayne people
Speaker 1: and indigenous people native to the lowlands of the Bolivian Amazon,
Speaker 1: and the Chimyine live off the land, far from modern conveniences,
Speaker 1: and they basically have like little to no access to healthcare,
Speaker 1: at least the kind you and I are familiar with.
Speaker 1: And for some reason they are freakishly healthy. Really, so
Speaker 1: if you take heart disease right like here in the US,
Speaker 1: about one in four people over the age of forty
Speaker 1: five shows signs of a clogged heart, but the Chimene zero.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, Lancet reported that, quote, the Chimyne have
Speaker 1: the lowest prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis of any population known
Speaker 1: to science.
Speaker 2: Is that incredible? Yeah? So no heart problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They also don't get high blood pressure or type
Speaker 1: two diabetes. They show little evidence of asthma or autoimmune diseases.
Speaker 1: Even their brains appear to be special. Like as we
Speaker 1: age are brains typically atrophy, but for some reason, the
Speaker 1: brains of older Chimyne people deteriorate at a rate that's
Speaker 1: slower than seventy percent.
Speaker 2: Wow, so they just never get sick.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the weird thing. They do get sick
Speaker 1: like a lot. They are outdoorsy, their lifestyle exposes them
Speaker 1: to like an insane bacterial load, viral and parasitic infections.
Speaker 1: Seventy percent of their population has parasitic roundworm infections, and
Speaker 1: because they get sick so often, they high levels of inflammation. Now,
Speaker 1: the strange part is that for most of us, inflammation
Speaker 1: would increase our chance of heart disease and other chronic ailments,
Speaker 1: but not for the Chimne. Their good health is so
Speaker 1: puzzling that scientists actually gave it a name, the Chimeyne
Speaker 1: inflammation paradox. Now, in recent years, researchers have descended on
Speaker 1: the population to learn their secrets, and so far their
Speaker 1: insights have gone against the grain of what we know
Speaker 1: about healthy living. So take those roundworm infections right, Like,
Speaker 1: on the face of it, it sounds pretty unhealthy, but
Speaker 1: researchers have actually discovered that this particular roundworm alters the
Speaker 1: immune system in a way that might actually improve female fertility.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, it's not crazy.
Speaker 1: And most chi Mayne only got six or seven hours
Speaker 1: of sleep, and that's below the eight or nine hours
Speaker 1: that doctors typically recommend. Here, right, it's accepted wisdom that
Speaker 1: inadequate sleep can make you age faster, and yet tests
Speaker 1: that measure aging was called intrinsic age acceleration, show that
Speaker 1: the chi Mayne age slower than just about everybody.
Speaker 2: That is incredible. But back to the idea of the diet.
Speaker 2: What does their diet have to do with any of this?
Speaker 1: So historically, obesity is rare among the Chimyenne, even though
Speaker 1: they eat a lot more than we do. The typical
Speaker 1: Chimaye women eat six hundred more calories than the average
Speaker 1: American women in a given day. Okay, but there are
Speaker 1: two big differences here, right, So First of all, their
Speaker 1: diet is composed completely differently than ours. They eat only
Speaker 1: four to fifty grams of fat a day Americans eat
Speaker 1: twice that. They also get more protein than we do,
Speaker 1: as much as fifty grams more per day than the
Speaker 1: average American, and they consume twice as much potassium, but
Speaker 1: just one eighth the amount of sodium. The other difference
Speaker 1: is activity level. The Chimayne actually average about sixteen thousand
Speaker 1: steps every single while, and they maintain this level of
Speaker 1: physical activity late into their lives.
Speaker 2: Their apple watches and garments must just be giving them
Speaker 2: so many awards for all that activity. All right, so
Speaker 2: we've got low fat, high protein tons of activity. Obviously,
Speaker 2: what kinds of foods are they actually eating? Like what's
Speaker 2: on the menu for the average chimne home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So for starches and veggies, they tend to eat
Speaker 1: like plantains, cassava, rice, and that's about it. Their primary
Speaker 1: seafood is a fish called the trahira, also known as
Speaker 1: the wolffish because of its dog like teeth. Then for protein,
Speaker 1: they eat a lineup of local mammals, including capabera, the pecari,
Speaker 1: which is basically a small wild pig. They also eat pakas,
Speaker 1: which are these giant rodents with markings kind of like deer,
Speaker 1: and Kutta Mundi's, which well, it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: cross between a lemur, a raccoon, and a small beer.
Speaker 1: And that's about it. They don't eat that much else.
Speaker 1: Most of their calories come from just nine different foods,
Speaker 1: which is pretty counterintuitive. Like here in the US, we're
Speaker 1: always told we should be eating the rainbow of vegetables
Speaker 1: and a wide variety of foods, but that's not what
Speaker 1: they do.
Speaker 2: That's super interesting. I want to say that I'm sold here,
Speaker 2: because it does feel like they've figured out the perfect diet.
Speaker 2: But I don't know how you could achieve that here.
Speaker 2: It's not like you're able to go to the store
Speaker 2: and pick up a code of Mundi, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: i'd never heard of that before. You said it's a
Speaker 2: cross between a lemur, a raccoon, and a small base.
Speaker 2: It all looks like a small I got it. I
Speaker 2: got it. But anyway, that sort of food isn't exactly
Speaker 2: accessible here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not finding it out a barbecue. This dietary
Speaker 1: advice isn't realistic for people like you and me, And
Speaker 1: lately even the Chimene have been having a hard time
Speaker 1: following this diet, and that's because modern life has started
Speaker 1: intruding on their space, right on their villages. Kids are
Speaker 1: now eating pasta there and processed foods and sugars. After
Speaker 1: generations of this diet that's like helped them defy the odds,
Speaker 1: their health's actually getting worse, it's kind of sad to see.
Speaker 1: And they're gaining weight. So it's possible that the world's
Speaker 1: healthiest diet might actually be on the verge of extinction.
Speaker 2: That's rough this has become a universal problem of trying
Speaker 2: to pry the sugary snacks away from our kids, you know,
Speaker 2: so they don't ruin their appetites before they eat a
Speaker 2: good dinner. It's just it's still different. Like here we're
Speaker 2: eating chicken. There they're eating capy bara, which I actually
Speaker 2: didn't know that was something people late.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So now, if you don't want to eat a
Speaker 1: capy berra, I certainly don't blame you, but maybe you'd
Speaker 1: like to hug one. Today on our Instagram, we're actually
Speaker 1: having a little contest. We're giving one lucky listener a
Speaker 1: wonderful and ridiculous plushy capabera for them to not eat.
Speaker 1: So get the details and enter to win at part
Speaker 1: time genius.
Speaker 2: All right, So for number eighteen, I got admit that
Speaker 2: last story did make me a little bit hungry, so
Speaker 2: I'm gonna stick with that theme. Here's a question for you, mego,
Speaker 2: do you like lobster I'm kind of like so so
Speaker 2: on it. Okay, I like lobster rolls, but I don't
Speaker 2: love lobster meat that much. I'm also not into working
Speaker 2: for my food. Other than pistachios and bananas, maybe boiled peanuts,
Speaker 2: I don't really like cracking foods open with my fingers
Speaker 2: and pulling chunks of meat out of there. You put
Speaker 2: it that way, Well, I actually do like lobster, although
Speaker 2: it's not that I get to have it that often.
Speaker 2: But anyone who's ever dined on whole lobster knows it
Speaker 2: is not the easiest thing to eat. So, like you said,
Speaker 2: you have to break it apart with mallets and crackers
Speaker 2: and stick little forks in there to retrieve every last
Speaker 2: little bit of meat. And if you don't know what
Speaker 2: you're doing, it is a daunting task.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really intimidating, especially for you know, I was
Speaker 1: a vegetarian for a large part of my life, and
Speaker 1: so I think that's.
Speaker 2: Part of why I'm not as attracted to it, right. Right,
Speaker 2: it's sort of intimidating, and you know, even if you
Speaker 2: do know what you're doing, it's messy, like it's one
Speaker 2: of the only foods that served with a bib and
Speaker 2: wet wipes. But I've actually got a pretty big solve
Speaker 2: for you here. This goes back to two thousand and six.
Speaker 2: A man named Johnny Hathaway was thinking about this problem.
Speaker 2: He's a Native manor and he and his family had
Speaker 2: opened a seafood restaurant and a touristy part of the state.
Speaker 2: So every summer the place was flooded with people who
Speaker 2: craved lobster, but, as he told us in an interview,
Speaker 2: customers were turned off by the mess.
Speaker 3: Well, I soon found out that people really wanted the food,
Speaker 3: not the animal.
Speaker 2: He thought, there has to be an easier way to
Speaker 2: cook and serve lobster, and it turned out there was.
Speaker 2: I've got three words for you, mango, high pressure processing,
Speaker 2: you get it.
Speaker 1: I like that you're saying these things expecting me to
Speaker 1: have a reaction, but I have no idea what any
Speaker 1: of that means.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, in the simplest terms, it's kind of
Speaker 2: like pasteurization, except it uses cold water and pressure instead
Speaker 2: of high heat. So the process is really useful because
Speaker 2: it kills the pathogens and the microorganisms that can actually
Speaker 2: make food spoil. Now, one day, Johnny happened to be
Speaker 2: chatting with someone from the main lobster promotion Council is
Speaker 2: sort of a collective for the state's prize industry, and
Speaker 2: she told him she'd heard about some guy in New
Speaker 2: Orleans who were using high pressure processing to kill bacteria
Speaker 2: and oysters. That's a big problem. By the way, a
Speaker 2: lot of people enjoy eating oysters raw, so having the
Speaker 2: ability to eliminate that bacteria without cooking was a pretty
Speaker 2: big deal. And it gets better. So the folks in
Speaker 2: Louisiana were finding that putting oysters in a high pressure
Speaker 2: machine didn't just make them safe to eat, it actually
Speaker 2: also shucked them. That's pretty magical. Now, just completely detached
Speaker 2: the meat from the shell. And what is lobster if
Speaker 2: not a larger and more complicated oyster. Right.
Speaker 1: I feel like some of Breene biologists out there might
Speaker 1: disagree with that. H No simple assessment continues, just.
Speaker 2: Facts, manu. So when Johnny heard this, he knew he
Speaker 2: had to see this for himself. So he got in
Speaker 2: touch with the oyster guys and they were like, we
Speaker 2: don't know anything about lobsters, but we're up for trying
Speaker 2: an experiment. So here's Johnny again.
Speaker 3: So I brought some lobster down in New Orleans and
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe what it did.
Speaker 3: We put it in the machine, we take it out,
Speaker 3: and it's a very simple process. But what it does
Speaker 3: is it breaks the membrane between the shell and the meat,
Speaker 3: and it allows you to take out the meat raw.
Speaker 3: The meat slides right out.
Speaker 2: So I just want to take a second to acknowledge
Speaker 2: the historic nature of that moment, right like it was
Speaker 2: the first time in human in history that anyone had
Speaker 2: shucked a raw lobster. It's just not possible otherwise. So
Speaker 2: until that fateful day, the only way to break meat
Speaker 2: from the membrane was by cooking it. So Johnny heads home,
Speaker 2: he tracks down a high pressure processor online. He calls
Speaker 2: it the big mother Shucker because this thing is huge.
Speaker 3: The first machine I bought was sixteen feet high and
Speaker 3: weigh to eighty thousand pounds, and all it is is
Speaker 3: a cylinder that you'd fill with water, no heat, no chemicals,
Speaker 3: It's just water and you turn on the pressure and
Speaker 3: find the right pressure. The cycle last maybe three minutes.
Speaker 2: So once he had it up and running and got
Speaker 2: the settings dialed in, Johnny and his employees were able
Speaker 2: to process four to six million lobsters every single week.
Speaker 2: I didn't know there were that many lobsters out there.
Speaker 2: And you have to understand there's a lot of tradition
Speaker 2: in the main lobster industry and that's part of the
Speaker 2: cultural importance here. But that also meant that Johnny had
Speaker 2: to sell the idea of this pressure shucked raw lobsters
Speaker 2: to people who'd been doing things the old way for
Speaker 2: a long time. You could see a lot of people
Speaker 2: might just take joy in that process, right, because it's
Speaker 2: like an art in itself. But luckily his raw Lobster
Speaker 2: Meet won two awards at the two thousand and seven
Speaker 2: Brussels International Seafood Show Best New Food Service Product, Most
Speaker 2: Convenient New Seafood Product. Now that was a pretty definitive
Speaker 2: seal of approval, and it helped Maynor see the commercial
Speaker 2: potential of what he was.
Speaker 3: Up to other processors and fishermen alike. They saw, okay,
Speaker 3: this opens up another way for us to market our product. Right,
Speaker 3: we don't have to just sell live anymore. We can
Speaker 3: sell it to processes, and processes can do more value
Speaker 3: added products.
Speaker 2: It opened up new markets now, according to Johnny, Chef's
Speaker 2: love the convenience of raw lobster. It gives them more
Speaker 2: options for cooking. Before, if you wanted a suv lobster,
Speaker 2: it had to be parboiled first, and as Johnny says,
Speaker 2: nobody buys a cook steak and then cooks it again.
Speaker 2: But there's one other benefit to this process that's worth mentioning.
Speaker 3: The pressure actually kills the lobster within six seconds. So
Speaker 3: you know, that's pretty good when you think about the
Speaker 3: animals in the world how they're treated. I think that
Speaker 3: was very important.
Speaker 2: If you're going to eat lobster, that is a pretty
Speaker 2: humane way to do it. Anyway, since Johnny's big new discovery,
Speaker 2: a few other high pressure processors have actually opened up
Speaker 2: in Maine, and Johnny's thinking about new ways to put
Speaker 2: the technology to use. For example, he's working with the
Speaker 2: University of Maine and research involving crab and lobster shells,
Speaker 2: which contain a polymer called kitan. Now it's already being
Speaker 2: used in agriculture as fertilizer, but apparently may have other
Speaker 2: applications including helping with skin problems and wound healing. And
Speaker 2: when you can separate a bunch of crustaceans from their
Speaker 2: shells in a matter of minutes, it makes all the
Speaker 2: testing and advances a whole lot more possible.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. You know, I wonder if it's going
Speaker 1: to affect the all you can eat crabshats and like Maryland.
Speaker 1: In places like that where you know you've got all
Speaker 1: this old bay and you're often drinking beer because like
Speaker 1: it takes such a long time and like it's hard
Speaker 1: to get the meat out. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: very different process here.
Speaker 2: It's going to have it comes straight down a shoot
Speaker 2: into your mouth.
Speaker 1: Do not touch that dial. We will be right back
Speaker 1: with more great science ideas right after the break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about the
Speaker 1: twenty five greatest science ideas of the last twenty five years.
Speaker 1: So this one is close to my heart. Will Were
Speaker 1: you a bike rider as a kid?
Speaker 2: Definitely. I rode my bike every day to school from
Speaker 2: really second grade on all the way, yeah, all the
Speaker 2: way through elementary school. I loved riding my bike.
Speaker 1: And did you have to wear a helmet?
Speaker 2: Well, I was actually talking about this just the other
Speaker 2: day to somebody that this was on the front end
Speaker 2: of kids wearing helmets, right, And of course my parents
Speaker 2: maybe wear a helmet, and I'm thankful for that, but
Speaker 2: I was one of the few in our group of
Speaker 2: friends that would ride to school that were wearing helmets.
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm glad that there's no weirdness around that today.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I was one of the few wearing them
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it is so normalized today and
Speaker 1: the helmets are so much less clunky.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: In seventh grade, with no warning, my dad went out
Speaker 1: and did two things. First, he bought his helmets and
Speaker 1: insisted we wear them, which you know makes sense and
Speaker 1: i'd of course two with my kids now. But he
Speaker 1: also found these white poles that he put on our
Speaker 1: like very thin bubbles they put on with orange flags,
Speaker 1: and so they were.
Speaker 2: Riding above us. Wow.
Speaker 1: It was partially because like we lived on a hill
Speaker 1: and so like if you went up the hill, you
Speaker 1: want cars to be able to see what was coming.
Speaker 1: But it was kind of the equivalent of wearing headgear
Speaker 1: to like a middle school dance, right, So like I
Speaker 1: used to bike everywhere to the local convenience store to
Speaker 1: like cull to sack. You know, it was just transportation
Speaker 1: for us, and and then immediately I start walking. For me,
Speaker 1: helmets were really a deterrent. And one thing that I
Speaker 1: think is really fascinating is there's a company called Holdving,
Speaker 1: which has created something that's basically a scarf like technology
Speaker 1: that inflates on impact like an airbag.
Speaker 2: So is this like an invisible airbag helmet or like,
Speaker 2: how I'm not picturing this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. This thing is amazing and middle school me
Speaker 1: would have been so psyched to seen one of these
Speaker 1: or had one of these. But I've been watching videos
Speaker 1: online of people crashing and one second it looks like
Speaker 1: they're wearing nothing on their head, and next it looks
Speaker 1: like someone like pulled over like an airbag hoodie. The
Speaker 1: whole thing is the invention of two brilliant Swedish women
Speaker 1: named Anna Hoppt and Teres Alston. They designed the helmet
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five as part of a master's
Speaker 1: thesis in industrial design at Lund University, and they tricked
Speaker 1: it out with some really interesting features. You do have
Speaker 1: to keep the helmet charge and you have to switch
Speaker 1: it on when you're riding, but you can change out
Speaker 1: the colors so like you can have the scarf like
Speaker 1: thing match your outfit. It comes with a black box
Speaker 1: and it records the last ten seconds before a crash,
Speaker 1: which can actually be helpful if you're trying to determine
Speaker 1: fault in like the accident or something like that. And
Speaker 1: according to tests done by engineers at Stanford the whole
Speaker 1: thing actually protected people from concussions eight times better than
Speaker 1: traditional bike helmets. Unfortunately, however, the cost ended up being
Speaker 1: a factor. In a twenty fifteen review from The Guardian,
Speaker 1: they said a new helmet cost about two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds and if you get in a crash you
Speaker 1: kind of have to replace it. Polving did replace the
Speaker 1: helmets for about one hundred pounds once you bought your
Speaker 1: first one, but it really wasn't cheap.
Speaker 2: And you know that this goes back over a decade now,
Speaker 2: so I'm curious, like, can I get a hold of
Speaker 2: a whole thing now?
Speaker 1: Not easily. So the founders left the company in twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen and the company went bankrupt in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: But what Anna Andrees did actually opened people up to
Speaker 1: new ways of thinking about bike helmets. There's an incredible
Speaker 1: company out of Germany called in Flabby that actually has
Speaker 1: an ultra thin geometric helmet. You fill it with a
Speaker 1: bike pump and it fills these air pockets to protect
Speaker 1: your head. And the best part is you can actually
Speaker 1: fold it up and scrunch it up so you're not
Speaker 1: carrying this clunky helmet around it just kind of like
Speaker 1: sticks in a bag or a pocket. That said, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if someone tries to improve on the
Speaker 1: last released version of the whole thing and then comes
Speaker 1: out with a better inflatable helmet. Also, just for the record,
Speaker 1: I want to make clear that I do wear a helmet.
Speaker 1: These days, I'm a little less worried about what kids
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood think about me. But I do wear
Speaker 1: it when I bike around New York on city bikes
Speaker 1: with my family, so you don't have to worry.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll check that one off the list, all right. Well,
Speaker 2: I think it's safe to say that VR hasn't quite
Speaker 2: taken off in the way we might have expected it to,
Speaker 2: at least not yet. But one use of it that's
Speaker 2: really interesting is in pain management, so more specifically having
Speaker 2: patients virtually swim with dolphins. That's actually helped patients manage
Speaker 2: their chronic pain better. Have you heard about this?
Speaker 1: No, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: According to a piece on the radio station WAB, a
Speaker 2: seventy year old military vet told reporters, it's fantastic. I
Speaker 2: really feel like I'm there. I get a strong feeling
Speaker 2: of pleasure, relaxation and peace, just nice to think about.
Speaker 2: So basically, he swims three times a day for ten
Speaker 2: minutes a session and it's had a remarkable effect on
Speaker 2: his ability to manage his pain. That is really cool,
Speaker 2: and it's really that effective apparently so. And the truth is,
Speaker 2: doctors like Brennan Spiegel at Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: they've been looking for alternative ways to help patients manage
Speaker 2: their pain and reduce their reliance on heavy prescription pills
Speaker 2: for a long time now, and VR actually seems to
Speaker 2: have an impact, at least according to the paper he
Speaker 2: published in the journal Plus one Now. In his study,
Speaker 2: Spiegel took patients who were either experiencing pain from cancer
Speaker 2: or maybe had severe orthopedic pain, and he divided these
Speaker 2: patients into two different groups. So one group got VR
Speaker 2: headsets and was told they could use as much VR
Speaker 2: as they wanted, but they were asked to do it
Speaker 2: at least three times a day for ten minutes a session. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the other group got to watch a wellness channel on TV. So,
Speaker 2: as Spiegel put it, VR is thought to create an
Speaker 2: immersive distraction that restricts the brain from processing pain. And
Speaker 2: what they found was that when they used a zero
Speaker 2: to ten pain scale, the group that us VR three
Speaker 2: times a day actually saw a drop in their pain
Speaker 2: levels by two full points.
Speaker 1: That is pretty remarkable, And i'd actually heard of VR
Speaker 1: being used for immersion therapy, like people have a tough
Speaker 1: time with heights, having the VR stimulate like you're looking
Speaker 1: out of a tall building, or people who are afraid
Speaker 1: of public speaking, you get to talk to a virtual
Speaker 1: crowd and build up a stamina or muscle skill. But
Speaker 1: the idea of swimming with dolphins is just so beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's so different from like facing your fears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. And scientists are looking for how
Speaker 2: VR might be useful in other painful conditions, you know,
Speaker 2: from managing labor pains to distracting patients when they get
Speaker 2: painful infusions for cancer treatments. It's pretty remarkable what can
Speaker 2: happen here. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: So here's a quick one that gives me a lot
Speaker 1: of empathy for that character pig Pen in Nuts.
Speaker 2: Is the one with the dirty cloud around him all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: I love pig Pen, but it turns out he is
Speaker 1: not alone. Apparently we all have a swarm of bacteria
Speaker 1: that we're constantly shedding in the space around us. It's
Speaker 1: known as a microbial cloud, and according to a team
Speaker 1: of scientists at the University of Oregon, everyone is surrounded
Speaker 1: by a unique cloud. It's about ninety centimeters wide, made
Speaker 1: up of millions of bacteria. And when we walk through
Speaker 1: each other's clouds, our clouds mingle and we actually change
Speaker 1: each other's microbiomes.
Speaker 2: Just a little wow.
Speaker 1: The way a BBC article put it was a little
Speaker 1: grosser than that. They're right, quote, walk through someone else's
Speaker 1: cloud and it'll rain bacteria on your skin and be
Speaker 1: breathed into your lungsaw.
Speaker 2: That is really gross. And I think the thing that
Speaker 2: stuck out to me is ninety centimeters Like that's not tiny,
Speaker 2: you know, like that's actually a meaningful But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a really gross description.
Speaker 1: I mean, the article quotes one biologist as saying the
Speaker 1: findings were quote simply gross. Microbiologists are disturbed. That's pretty great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I think it's just one of those things that
Speaker 1: you live with forever, you don't really think about, and
Speaker 1: then when you happen to, like peer under a microscope,
Speaker 1: it's more complicated than you could ever imagine it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm guessing a shower doesn't help the situation.
Speaker 1: Now you cannot scrub this away. But the way the
Speaker 1: scientists rand the experiment was pretty fascinating. So they basically
Speaker 1: had people hang out in a room where Petri dishes
Speaker 1: and suspended air filters inside the room, collected the floating microbes,
Speaker 1: and then they analyze these personal clouds. And what they
Speaker 1: found was that every cloud is really like a fingerprint.
Speaker 1: But also, I do think there's something poetic about the
Speaker 1: fact that, like, when you hang out in someone else's cloud,
Speaker 1: you take back a bacterial souvenir. Like there's almost this
Speaker 1: record of your life and how you spent your time
Speaker 1: that you're constantly carrying around with you, and the idea
Speaker 1: that you're changed a little by everyone you meet or
Speaker 1: interact with. It's just kind of human and wonderful.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: Okay, listeners, we've got to pause for a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back with more Part Time Genius very soon.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're continuing with
Speaker 1: our crazy countdown.
Speaker 2: All right, semengo, what would you say if I told
Speaker 2: you I could fix the cracks in your phone screen?
Speaker 2: Just by covering it with a damp paper towel.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd probably think you were lying or it
Speaker 1: was a prank.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, it's actually an innovation that is just around
Speaker 2: the corner. Once this new quote self healing glass hits
Speaker 2: the market, we really will be able to repair cracks
Speaker 2: by just adding water.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So how exactly does this work? Because I mean,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, but like glass needs heat
Speaker 1: to repair, not moisture, right, Well, that's definitely true of
Speaker 1: traditional glass.
Speaker 2: But what I'm talking about is something called peptide glass.
Speaker 2: And in case your chemistry is a little rusty, here
Speaker 2: it is. I knew it would be. A peptide in short,
Speaker 2: is a chain of amino acids, which are chemical building
Speaker 2: blocks of proteins. So peptides can self assemble into all
Speaker 2: kinds of useful structures, including endorphins and insulin. But because
Speaker 2: they're crystalline in nature, they aren't typically associated with glass.
Speaker 1: Because glass isn't crystalline.
Speaker 2: Right, And in crystalline structures, the atoms are arranged in
Speaker 2: a rigid repeating pattern, so when the crystal is subjected
Speaker 2: to stress, it tends to fracture really easily. Glass, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, is what's known as an amorphous solid.
Speaker 2: That means that atoms are arranged at random, which allows
Speaker 2: it to absorb stress more evenly, making it harder to
Speaker 2: actually break.
Speaker 1: I love how they are like different types of solids,
Speaker 1: different types of liquids. Ketchup is a certain type of
Speaker 1: liquid that doesn't move or flow right right, and then
Speaker 1: you have this type of glass. But how is there
Speaker 1: something called peptide glass. It seems like a bit of
Speaker 1: a contradiction.
Speaker 2: Well it is exactly that, and that's why researchers at
Speaker 2: Tel Aviv were so surprised last year. They found when
Speaker 2: a certain peptide is mixed with water, it can self
Speaker 2: assemble into this rigid, transparent, glass like material. Now this
Speaker 2: wasn't something that they set out to find either, and
Speaker 2: that's always the fun in science of these accidental discoveries.
Speaker 2: But in fact, they were actually studying entirely different properties
Speaker 2: of peptides when they made this discovery. But that wasn't
Speaker 2: even the best part, because it turned out this new
Speaker 2: kind of glass also had the ability to heal itself
Speaker 2: when it was remoistened.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: So, according to one of the studies, authors quote. We
Speaker 2: found that although the peptide glass cracks under dry conditions,
Speaker 2: it can easily repair these cracks. All that needs to
Speaker 2: be done is transfer the glass to a more humid environment.
Speaker 2: As soon as you do that, water molecules re enter
Speaker 2: the material, repair the cracks, and allow the glass to reform.
Speaker 1: That is so amazing. And I know you said this
Speaker 1: was just discovered, but what are the commercial prospects or
Speaker 1: something like this? Does it seem like a viable product?
Speaker 2: It definitely does so far. So conventional glass requires a
Speaker 2: ton of energy to produce because you have to gather
Speaker 2: all the different raw materials and you melt them together
Speaker 2: at extremely high temperatures. But with this, you actually just
Speaker 2: take some peptide powder, mix it with water, and voila.
Speaker 2: Like it's instant glass. It's pretty amazing. It's as strong
Speaker 2: as silicate glass too, so it could be used to
Speaker 2: make just about anything windows, doors, optical lenses, and of
Speaker 2: course the thing we're all thinking about phone screens. I mean,
Speaker 2: it really does sound like it could revolutionize like a
Speaker 2: bunch of different industries and also save you so much
Speaker 2: money on repairs. Imagine like getting a crack in your
Speaker 2: windshield and just like waiting for the rain to repair it. Yea,
Speaker 2: it's amazing. Yeah, and you wouldn't necessarily have to replace
Speaker 2: your existing glass either. You could just add a thin
Speaker 2: coating of peptide glass over the top to sort of
Speaker 2: act as a barrier.
Speaker 1: You know who's going to really benefit from this as
Speaker 1: anyone with a glass bottom boat.
Speaker 2: Yes, those are the people that we really want to
Speaker 2: look out for. You know. It's like how people say
Speaker 2: we should make an entire plane out of the same
Speaker 2: material as the black box, Like, just make the whole
Speaker 2: boat out of peptide glass and it can never spring
Speaker 2: a leak.
Speaker 1: I think you just came up with the best sign
Speaker 1: of the year.
Speaker 2: Nailed it all right, Well that does it for today.
Speaker 2: Be sure to tune in tomorrow as the countdown continues.
Speaker 2: I don't want to give too much away, but tomorrow's
Speaker 2: episode involves NASCAR dinosaurs. Sounds like, really this is a
Speaker 2: tough guy episode and a very special musical number. That's right,
Speaker 2: that's right, And of course don't forget the head over
Speaker 2: to our Instagram at part time Genius to enter our
Speaker 2: copy bar contest. We're from Gabe Dylan, Mary Mangush and me.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening, oh.
Speaker 1: And Lucas Riley, Thank you, Lucas. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by Will Pearson and me Mongschatikler and research by our
Speaker 1: good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
Speaker 1: produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gate
Speaker 1: Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.